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New Music Video - Rain

Growing up, I heard stories from my parents, both Hungarian immigrants, about living through war. My mother hid in a dirt basement whenever soldiers came, and remembers watching a bomb land in their garden which miraculously did not explode. She saw friends get taken away, never to be seen or heard from again. My dad spent seven years in a refugee camp, most days eating only potatoes. He had been shot at numerous times. Both suffered and lost belongings, friends, and family.

It's not the type of information I read about in history books, nor hear about on the news. Although I did not experience war firsthand, I feel their stories gave me a unique perspective. I've always wanted to create something to pay tribute to the people who have actually felt the true costs of war.

A decade ago, as I watched us go to war in Afghanistan, then Iraq, I thought a lot about the people in the war zone at the time. It moved me enough to write the song "Rain," which is that tribute to both the civilians living in a war and the soldiers sent to fight it. With the war still continuing there ten years later, I was moved again to do even more with the song, this time incorporating the images of actual people involved. I searched for Creative Commons photos on Flickr, and put together this video.

The first verse of the song tells the story of an Afghan girl living through the war. The second verse tells the story of the fiance of a soldier going off to fight. Both of their stories are of loss and hardship. But the bridge is a dream of hope - when the hurt is replaced with love, when fear no longer falls from the sky. I hope this video further helps share my hope for this song and for a world where our children will never have to know what war is truly like.

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